Yeah Cracklings… I still feel like Zerglings are still very weak late game. Without any kind of good support (i.e. Defilers), they’d still get shredded by a variety of units. Ultra/Ling with Infestor support sounds like it could be good, but breaking chokes, especially against Terran, will be pretty difficult without any ranged support. We’ll see, I guess.
Yay my thors can destroy force fields by walking on them!
Currently Blizzard/Battle.net is experiencing in a whole host of fuck ups post Patch13. DO NOT BOTHER PLAYING online until this is resolved. Otherwise enjoy consistent dropped games where, because of such, every game counts as your loss and is fucking recorded as such. Any games that make it past 2 minutes lag like a mother fucker, and yet are still susceptible to being dropped.
The whole list of problems is here.
~K.
I tried to play my placement matches this morning, and got dropped in my 5th match. Thankfully, it didn’t go in my placement match history. I really don’t want to have to start in gold league.
So patch 13:
Protoss: I like the changes they made to the protoss. I figured out how to counter VRs fairly well but apparently the range nerf from 7 to 6 was more for the terran players anyways. The nerf isn’t so significant that the queens do too much better against them anyways. Making force fields destructible vs. massive units makes sense. It’s funny since I won’t use ultras anyway I’ll likely never actually get to take advantage of this.
Terran: lol wut. I don’t think a single player (pro or otherwise) would look at the MMM build and go “You know what? I think I need to make you stronger.” WTF. Making stim packs and combat shields both cheaper is a kick to the nads and stim packs especially since it benefits both marines and marauders.
Zerg: Holy fucking cow did Blizzard miss the mark on this one. First off, I don’t like Frenzy on the corruptor, it’s basically a non issue to me. I don’t understand why Frenzy went to the Zerg of all races when you really look at it from a balance perspective. We have the lowest damaging units per cost in the game for the most part…but we balance that out with shit tons of macro and queens. So why give us a spell that is A) A little too much like Blood Lust from WarCraft and B) Better suited towards a race that has fewer units that can crank out more damage per hit? Siege tank, colossi, or thor would all make better frenzy targets than almost everything the zerg have. The overseer changes are understandable. It really was mostly used simply for its detection uses and giving it the contamination ability will probably be fairly useful. Infested Terran would be a lot cooler if it didn’t take 125 energy and if Overseers didn’t require a 150/100 investment in the first place. However, they have made the unit feel like it’s good for more than just seeing shit.
But the Ultralisk? Really? I don’t see how any player could even remotely agree with the change they made. I know players are saying that it’s good that we finally have bonus vs. armored but who really cares?! Did you know it takes approximately 3 1/2 days to tech to Ultralisks!? Watching his now 25% debuffed HP get blown apart just a little bit faster isn’t going to encourage me at all. Also, the Ultra doesn’t count as a good frenzy target if you were wondering, because he’ll just get killed before he can get to the front lines. It would make infinitely more sense to give him abilities to walk over friendly units and up cliff walls. It would fit the flavor seeing as how ultras are massive and clearly have four good working legs. They’d actually become really useful for late game harassment, but as they are they suck.
Blah.
Frenzy was designed to cast on ultralisks and charge into combat, no other eason
I got dropped from a placement match against a scrub and it recorded the loss. :shake: I always get screwed in placement.
But the Ultra is still restricted by shitty path finding, friendly units near him, and now 25% less hit points. If that is Frenzy’s intended purpose, it has failed.
Zerg was never meant to fight at chokes in the first place, so it’s kind of a moot point.
Exactly. And also to help them clear buildings/structures.
And also don’t forget people that Ultras don’t target just one unit/building—their attacks are area attacks. Frenzy is going to be crazy on them.
Zerg players, while some won’t be this way, are probably going to be teching like motherfuckers like this and with the ability to squash forcefields VS Protoss. We’re all going to be seeing a lot more ‘massive’ units because of Patch13. Unless something changes again later on.
~K.
this is how protoss players must be feeling [media=youtube]B3WimCPUkQY[/media]
protoss get way over played though in BW
Ya my toss isn’t looking as hawt as they used to be.
I just got a beta key. Would it be worth it for me to start playing now? I’ve never played the beta.
Would anyone be willing to help out a noob? :lol:
Are either of you aware of how INCREDIBLY difficult it is to tech to ultras? Are either of you also aware that almost every main base has a choke point or two and so do most expos? How about the fact that most basic builds destroy them? The ultras are still completely worthless when their main ability is to A) destroy tier 1 units that aren’t marauders (they do this well) and B) destroy buildings (they do this well as long as it doesn’t involve going up a ramp or though a small area at all or if there’s allied/enemy units around or if the opponent has the ability to control his hands). It is an absolutely horrific expenditure in terms of minerals, gas, and time compared to any top tech Terran/Toss unit. It takes longer to get to (by a long shot) and is usually useless. A ‘buff’ that basically requires another unit casting a spell on it is hardly a buff, and won’t make a difference in the majority of games. And Korynthyan, Blizz didn’t mention it but most Zerg players are noticing a decrease in the AoE of the splash the Ultras do. Their feeble role for the insane cost gets less and less attractive by the minute.
If you don’t believe me, take it from a top-rated platinum zerg player, I don’t give a fuck.
[media=youtube]H1OkkjMck1s[/media]
The speed of the ultras is still the same as it was in that patch, and in fact all of the things pointed out here about how much ultras suck is made worse when you consider the game in its current state.
Edit: The difference of course here is the sentry thing. Ultras now walk over that shit just fine. But I’d still rather use a nydus/mutas/smart aggression than go to tech level 3 just to solve against a tech level 1.5 unit.
I wish he showed thors vs ultras with 250mm cannon upgrade lol.
Problem with Ultralisks is that you generally choose them over choosing brood lords, and brood lords do pretty much everything an ultralisk does, but better.
Let’s assume a standard roach/hydra army for zerg.
For Ultras, you’ll need:
150/200 for Ultralisk Cavern
150/150 for Ultralisk Speed
150/150 for Ultralisk Armor
300/200 for 1st Ultralisk
That’s 750/700 for your first usable ultralisk with the assumption that ultra speed and armor are almost required for them to be effective (aka not kited immediately).
For a Brood Lord, you’ll need:
200/200 for a Spire
100/150 for a Greater Spire
150/100 for a Corruptor
150/150 for a Brood Lord
That’s 700/600 for your first usable Brood Lord discounting the other benefits of having a spire (Mutalisks, Corruptors), and assuming Brood Lords are useful right out of the box.
What do Ultralisks do well:
They kill massive balls of T1 and T2 units and slow armored units. They kill buildings. They tank for your hydras better than roaches.
What do Brood Lords do well:
They kill any ground army, impede movement to tank for your units, makes targetting UI go absolutely insane, kill buildings efficiently via lolbroodlings.
What do Ultralisks do badly:
Die to air-ground, get kited by pretty much anything (stalkers, stim-terran bio). Take up a lot of space.
What do Brood Lords do badly:
Die to air-air. Maybe die to blink-stalkers depending on positioning.
This just doesn’t seem like a fair comparison, especially when you factor in that you’ll probably want corruptors to help deal with carriers or cruisers.
If game freezes and you don’t want the loss, just alt tab out for a while until battle.net gives you a message saying you were dropped. I did this twice, and the game did not end up on my record.
Im hyped for the HDH finals today, though they had issues with the 3rd place match, which was the more interesting one, since they got the replays 5 minutes before the patch, and now you cant watch old replays, so they’re working hard for a solution. At the very least we get Idra vs White Ra ( think), but TLO vs Nony was looking like fun
1:00 pacific time, http://www.ustream.tv/channel/hdstarcraft I think is the link where its going to be cast.